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AEROVIRONMENT AWARDED $6.2 MILLION PUMA 3 AE UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS CONTRACT BY UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
The marine corps orders $6.2 Mil of Puma 3 AE’s on May 3rd, 22. AVAV announces the award on June 14th with delivery to be completed by July, 2022! Please notice in the lead PR…… “target acquisition in day or night maritime and land-based operations”!
With lots of discussion regarding food shortages and Ukraine grain being unable to ship w/o Russian interference and/or piracy, seems to me the US is planning a naval intervention in Ukraine and international waters to get much needed grain to European and Asian markets!
Another validation of the critical sustainability of AVAV technology! Enough to support market capitalization? That is the mystery!
ARLINGTON, Va., January 18, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), a global leader in intelligent, multi-domain robotic systems, today introduced the Switchblade® 300 Sensor to Shooter Kit, a capability that enables operators to instantly transfer target coordinates from AeroVironment’s small unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS) – Puma™ 3 AE, Puma™ LE, Raven® B or Wasp® AE – to Switchblade 300 loitering missile systems.
Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, which makes Switchblade loitering munitions, told me in an interview the company has a dedicated production facility ready to make ‘thousands’ of the weapons for Ukraine, if the U.S. government wants them.
Loitering munitions, sometimes called kamikaze drones, can be launched from long range without needing to locate a target first. Nawabi believes that the requirements for the current conflict exactly match what Switchblades were designed to do. Loitering munitions like the Switchblade 600 can find and destroy a tank from 25 miles away, giving a huge asymmetrical advantage to the defenders. They could neutralize Russian artillery and destroy tank formations before they become a threat.
But while the U.S. has sent over 5,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles and vast number of other weapons, it has only sent a few hundred loitering munitions. The reasons for this lie in the history of these weapons as a niche tool used by U.S. Special Forces; while not quite a secret weapon it has remained shrouded in mystery.